Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Paul Haggis, who produced Million Dollar Baby (2004), was arrested for sexual assault and aggravated personal injury.
Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Paul Haggis was arrested in Italy for sexually assaulting an unknown woman.
According to Variety and the Italian press, the 69-year-old Canadian director was also accused of causing serious injury to the unnamed woman who filed a complaint against him.
Haggis, author of the famous Hollywood film Million Dollar Baby (2004), was arrested in Ostuni, southern Italy, after allegedly forcing a young non-Italian woman to have non-consensual sex for two days in Ostuni.
The writer, who also co-wrote the James Bond films Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008), was expected to give a series of masterclasses at the Then Fest film event.
The film festival will run from 21 to 26 June and was created by the Italian journalist from Los Angeles Silvia Bizio and the Spanish art critic Sol Costales Doulton.
Bizio confirmed to Variety that Haggis has been arrested and that the event is “going completely away” from the director.
An Italian police report suggested that airport staff and border police assisted the alleged sexual assault victim after the alleged assault.
She was taken to the Perrino hospital in Brindisi for treatment and formal charges were subsequently filed against Haggis.
Haggis won the Best Picture Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.
He also co-wrote and produced the drama Crash (2005), which won Best Picture the following year.
The director created the action television series Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris.
Haggis said he wrote to Crash to “look for the liberals” during an interview with HuffPost Live in December 2017.
He argued that the film was intended to explore people who focused on political correctness but were blind to their own prejudices.
He added, “It’s those people who think, ‘We’ve got it all figured out.” [and] those who think, ‘We are good people, we are good liberals’, those are the people you cannot trust, because there is a level of denial. “
He reached out to a Haggis rep for comment.
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Source: Dailystar
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
